On Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 8:22 AM, Renee <phoenix...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> This is a very short article that speaks to the power of independent > reading. We've had discussions here over time that include a fairly wide > variety of philosophies about independent reading time. This is worth your > time. Look at how much time each day these students just read. > http://www.oregonlive.com/**news/oregonian/steve_duin/** > index.ssf/2012/06/steve_duin_**in_larry_burts_fift.html > > <http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/steve_duin/index.ssf/2012/06/steve_duin_in_larry_burts_fift.html> > Renee! So exciting to read this. This is pretty much the 'upper intermediate version' of what I've promoted for a long time. I observed a grade six/seven teacher doing this; always trying to pass it on. He had decided the "writing activities associated" (with Reader's Workshop) were too complex for some, babyish (note the article) for others; too time-consuming to get the best from kids and also mark, etc. So he just began getting loads of books from the downtown library, all kinds, including adult books, and offered them to his kids. Yes there was a learning curve as he prodded kids to make more suitable choices; that phase was about a month of the fall if I recall. His kids read the first hour of each day. Yes it was also June when I visited -- two weeks before school's end (we go till "the very end", here). I observed kids go into the same "lost in book" positions described in the article -- including the kids outside his door in the grass, on this beautiful sunny day! He spent the hour conferencing with individual students on books they'd recently finished -- perhaps ten or fifteen minutes each, about five or six kids in the hour (so in the week you've done your whole class). I thought it was remarkable but not surprising on examination -- you can readily confer on a book you have no knowledge of, using the dust jacket, picking some spots not quite at random, meaning behind the title and so on. Didn't he feel it risky, I asked -- adult books and so on? He just used his best judgement and hadn't had any problems. In one noteworthy situation I observed in that hour, he explained to me afterward, he figured the boy was out of his depth a bit, with that novel. He had clearly missed a bit of the symbolism in the title (a wilderness quest kind of novel). But the boy, a weaker student, was so jazzed about the book, said it was "the best book he'd ever read", and so on -- I had to consider it a hit rather than a miss? (Mortimer Adler, in his wonderful "How to Read a Book", urges people to take on harder material and really, just motor through it the best you can.) Another telling point: in a workshop I presented the next year, a former high school teacher who'd come down to grade seven spoke up. She smirked, I'd say. She *complained* that she got his kids, in the past -- they were a feeder school for hers. It was annoying, she said -- kids from his class were constantly found sneaking novels out of their desks to read, when they were supposed to be doing work for her. (I had to question, privately, her power of engagement!) And I'd be more than happy to have lots of kids stealing time to read. ;-) Sorry if duplicated; I have enthused about this before, don't think here though. Linda Rightmire SD #73 Kamloops BC ps My son in grade two, partway through the year, didn't like his teacher that much; the complaint -- they "didn't get to read", he said. (At least, not how he -- or we -- think of reading.) _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list Mosaic@literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive
